Crothers' plan to ‘make a difference’

When I interviewed the new UK government CPO Bill Crothers for the latest issue of SM, he stressed just how important it was to him that he used the position to “make a difference”.
He admitted he feels more “at the tail end” of his career and, with the economic difficulties facing the country, procurement has such an important role to play. Without wishing to sound trite, this is his way of “giving back”.
“To be truly trying to make a bigger difference in a way that hopefully will be assisting the change, it is really important to my personal manifesto that it is about making a difference,” he told me.
Crothers, who will be speaking at this year’s CIPS Annual Conference in London in October, is involved with the charity UK Youth, which helps disadvantaged young people. He said if government – and procurement – can make savings and money can somehow flow back to these type of services “it is worthwhile”.
With the announcement today by Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude that the government will aim to save £20 billion a year, Crothers is going to have to find plenty more opportunities to make the difference he is hoping for.